by Brandon Hill
“Does the sky glow?” I asked, feeling the need to find something of Zynj that could compete with the natural glories of Sar’vana’s home.
“No.” She glanced towards the vista of the skylight and sighed, but with still unabated wonder, rather than frustration. “The sky doesn’t glow.”
Feeling vindicated, I listened on as Sar’vana continued to describe the beauty of her homeworld in a level of detail that I had not expected from her kind. The videos and pictures of An’re’hara that existed were limited to the barest of readouts, and censored by the Felyan government. I saw the planet as it looked from space, the continents, and the major cities as the images showed, as well as a few choice areas of the planet, but that was the extent of what humanity knew. All others deeper in the know lived on An’re’hara, or one of its inner system colonies, and did not say much. Listening to Sar’vana, the planet came alive in a way that the scant videos and pics could never match. We talked for hours, as she shared every detail she knew, and I was her captive audience. Only when I saw her yawn did I suggest that she stop.
“Yes, it is getting late, I guess,” she said in grudging acquiescence, and I felt like something of a killjoy.
“I’m sorry, Vani,” I said. “I didn’t want you to exhaust yourself. I was just concerned. It’s also been a long day for us both.”
“No, it’s quite all right,” Sar’vana shook her head. “You’re right. I am feeling rather tired. And tomorrow is a new day.” She cast one last wistful look at the faded auroras. Another dust storm was about to blow in, and the miasma of clouds was beginning to obscure the night sky, as if the heavens were suggesting that we part ways for now. “Will you be available tomorrow?”
I don’t know why I half-expected her to be gone by then, knowing what Chester had told me, but I felt another electric thrill at being able to see my friend again, knowing that she would be there tomorrow and this reunion would not have been a dream. “I’m off tomorrow,” I said, unable to stop my smile, “so, yes.”
Sar’vana pushed herself away from the railing, then turned and again nuzzled my face, this time, without a purr. “Then I shall see you again tomorrow,” she said. “You know, I’m glad to see that you’re still here. I was worried that something might have happened to you, at first.”
“Of course not,” I replied with mock bravado. “Why would I upset you by being dead?”
“You really haven’t changed a bit,” Sar’vana said, giving a quiet snort.
“Good thing or bad thing?”
“Yes.”
We both laughed.
“Noon?” Shesaid as she headed towards the elevator.
“Noon is ... that’s fine,” I said. Not only had I taken several seconds to answer, but my voice had trailed off into an almost subvocal level, was most likely because I was momentarily hypnotized by her tail. It swished back and forth when she walked, and I was captivated by its swirling patterns of black upon gray, as one is transfixed by a dancing flame.
Sar’vana must have noticed my long pause, as she turned to face me with a questioning expression. Her tail swept back behind her and knocked me from my stupor. Realizing what had happened, I flustered, inwardly slapping myself for such behavior. “I … ah … said that noon’s fine.”
“Okay then; noon it is,” Sar’vana said, with a giggling edge to her voice. She cast another knowing grin my way, which was met with a puzzled expression from me. Again, she giggled, and sauntered off.
“In the arboretum,” I hurriedly added. “The skylight area tends to get a little hot during the day.”
The elevator door opened, and Sar’vana stepped inside. “I’ll meet you there,” she said.
“Goodnight,” I called out as the door closed. And I caught the sight of her waving goodbye as we were separated by steel and plastic.
3
I was glad that Sar’vana took the initiative to leave first, because I think I panicked. It was as if every memory of every part of her voice, her soft, almost powdery scent, and her velvet touch rolled into my mind and through my senses. In slow, cutting increments, those memories became a tidal wave that inundated me, and then became fire within me, burning, urgent, and painful.
I existed in a fevered half-dream as I ambled through the city corridors, wondering what was wrong with me, my mind reeling and overflowing. I muttered half-spoken apologies to the humans I bumped into, and gave the Felyans a wide berth. Once, I passed by a Felyan pair, the An’Kya technician being distinctively female. Her scent, a scent that I had recalled being warned about somewhere, stoked the fire within to an unbearable heat.
I bordered on anxiety and sickness. I had to force myself not to run to the pleasure house. Chester was no longer there, much to my relief, but even more of a blessing was the sight of Keisha, still at the bar, and doing her closing rounds. And all at once, the fire focused on her.
I approached her with all the suave confidence I could muster, despite the fact that I was teetering at the edge of coherent thought. I found it easy to get her to overlook my earlier snub, once she saw that I was genuinely interested. She had been skeptical at first; I’d expected as much, but then I was surprised to see her capacity for forgiveness. She took off early, and we retreated to the private rooms where I learned that her skills went well beyond bartending.
I remembered that night as one remembers the troubled dreams brought about by a high fever. Once did not satisfy me. Neither did twice, nor even three times. It was as if my apathy towards women had been merely a wall of ice, and someone had flash-melted that once impenetrable barrier into a tsunami of pent-up frustration that I unleashed upon an unsuspecting female. I count it as fortunate that Keisha was far from delicate, and gave as much as I did in the bargain as we exhausted ourselves, and the painful fire was finally quenched by way of our carnal deluge.
I was overtaken by an uncontrollable laugh as I lay there upon the mess of sheets and blankets, Keisha sleeping soundly beside me. I laughed long and raucously, and she slept on, her exhaustion absolute and deafening her to its volume. But there was no humor in that laugh.
“What’s happened to me?” I said to no one after my conniption fit sapped the last of my strength. My voice was dry, hoarse, and sounded as if I were nearly dead. I felt two tears roll thinly from my eyes as I was overwhelmed by something akin to regret. And in that moment before surrendering to refreshing sleep, I realized that it was not the sex that I regretted, but what had driven me to it. Something had changed inside me, had switched on something new, strange, and alien, and I fell like so much kindling to its power.
I can only count it as fortunate that I slept as deeply and dreamlessly as Keisha had.
I awoke groggy and confused, having forgotten most of last night. I vaguely remembered Keisha, and, for the moment, had no memory of Sar’vana. A folded piece of paper lay beside me in the empty bed, with an address and phone code on it that hinted at the previous night, in addition to the kiss mark I later noticed on my forehead in deep reddish-brown in the bathroom mirror. The scent of sex that remained on the covers and on my person jogged my memory at last … and I wished it hadn’t. I softly swore as I wiped the lipstick from my forehead, crumpling Keisha’s little “morning after” note in my hand. Though I halfway wanted to throw it away, I decided not to. I couldn’t say why, because quite frankly, I had no idea myself. Perhaps some part of me thought it rude, despite the fact that I woke up feeling no more attracted to her than when Chester and I arrived at the pleasure house that previous evening.
I washed the scent off of me, wishing that the water in the shower could have dissolved the confusion and shame. I picked through the rumpled sheets of the bed afterwards, and fished out my now thoroughly wrinkled clothes. I silently dressed myself and removed my phone from my pants pocket to find a message from Chester.
SOMEBODY GOT LAID LAST NIGHT! The message read, with a laughing emoticon floating in the text hologram. A sour feeling spread through me, and I swore again, furiously erasing
the message. It seemed that Chester and Keisha knew each other a little bit better than I had first supposed, and that did not bode well for me, least of all, my sense of privacy. I did clearly remember his confession to knowing in advance of Cheryl Althea’s having spiked my drink, and I still had not forgiven him for that. The last thing I needed was him whaling on me about Keisha and what a hypocrite I was. At least this time, I knew I hadn’t been drugged; I didn’t feel like crap when I woke up, or was stricken with the shakes for the rest of the following day like I’d been that night with Cheryl.
That was when the memory of my reunion with Sar’vana returned to mind. It was refreshment that washed away the bitter parts of my memory. A smile returned to my face, and my worries were pushed away to a distant universe. In far better spirits than before, I slung my tool bag over my shoulder, and, checking the time and seeing how little of it remained before noon, hurried home to find a fresher change of clothes.
I would be lying if I said that Sar’vana’s very unexpected presence in my home didn’t at first scare the living hell out of me.
“Vani? How the hell…?” I began, realizing that it wasn’t a thief. Her smile disarmed me quite literally, as the knife I’d quickly drawn clattered to the ground.
“I let myself in,” she said, and flashed me what could only be interpreted as a cheeky grin, “I hope you don’t mind.”
“Mind…? I fumbled for the knife on the ground, coming just short of slicing my hand open as I hurriedly and discreetly sheathed it on my belt. Sar’vana had taken notice of it, nevertheless. Far from frightened or offended, she shook with a silent giggle.
“You thought I was a robber?” She asked.
“It’s no joke,” I protested. “You wouldn’t believe the people who would love to break into an un-fixed person’s home. Good thing the locks on the doors are encrypted so…” My eyes suddenly narrowed. “Wait just a minute; just how did you decrypt the code?”
“My people designed the locks,” Sar’vana said matter-of-factly, as she placed a necklace that she had been admiring back on the table where it sat with my other jewelry pieces. “And my father heads all the work on these systems.”
“Stupid question, then?” I said, feeling quite stupid indeed, especially in light of the fact that I should have known this. Her father’s profession was something I had been quite familiar with as a child. God, how much had I forgotten about that time?
“You didn’t know, so you can’t blame yourself,” Sar’vana said without any kind of accusation. “And I know that this was a bit forward of me. You humans do appreciate your privacy, after all. Quite frankly, I’m surprised you didn’t first ask how I knew where you lived.”
Realizing the point of her statement, I was stricken silent with the realization of my horribly skewed priorities. I opened my mouth to speak, but then, completely stuck for words, closed it, choosing, rather, to wallow in my chagrin.
“The citizenry database is one of our programs as well,” Sar’vana said, relieving me of some of my self-consciousness.
“So to what do I owe the surprise?” I finally asked, switching over to a less embarrassing subject.
“I just couldn’t wait until noon.” Sar’vana rounded my dinner table as she approached me. “It’s still early; I thought you’d be home, but when I saw that you weren’t, I figured you might be at work. So I let myself in. I hope I wasn’t crossing any lines.”
“No, you’re always welcome here,” I said, recovering my ability to smile.
“I was about to leave,” Sar’vana said. “I’d arrived awhile ago, but … well …” She gestured vaguely to the massive collection of my artwork stored upon the equally massive shelf in the back.
“My little stash kept you here?” I said. Sar’vana nodded.
“It’s quite impressive.” She stole a second glance back at the shelf, her striped tail swishing back and forth with interest. “You’ve obviously been busy since I was last here.”
“Ten years is a long time to a human.” I moved over towards the shelf, guiding Sar’vana along with me to the black velvet cushion where the necklace she had been previously admiring rested. It was made of brass that I’d woven into a braided form, and housed a small green jewel of colored glass. Sar’vana’s gaze immediately rested upon it and its sister: a necklace that I’d found, rather than made. The Jewel that hung from its silver chain was a tiny sparkling amethyst, the same color as Sar’vana’s eyes, cut into the shape of a tear, so that it looked like a glistening purple raindrop that hung from misty clouds.
“I noticed a lot of Felyan style of your artwork,” Sar’vana said.
I gave my art a cursory glance, and recalled things that I had learned of Felyan culture, both from data files and what Sar’vana had taught me. I was speechless for a moment, as I honestly had not realized that so much of my art truly did sport styles and script that was Felyan. It was like I had unconsciously tapped into forgotten memories and expressed them in the moldings of metal, glass, stone, and plastic on my artwork, or fashioned them into Felyan archetypes.
“I never really thought about it before,” I said at last, again feeling somewhat stupid.
Sar’vana, with no condescension, pointed to the top shelf. “There’s Trisii, the heroine of the silver moon,” she said, gesturing towards a small figurine of a female An’Kya Felyan who held a crescent moon-shaped bow aloft.
“You told me about her once,” I said, recalling a story she’d recited to me long ago. “The mother of the An’Kya, right?”
“That’s right,” Sar’vana said, and then gestured towards another piece of steel and glass jewelry: a bracelet in the middle of the third shelf. “And that bracelet’s covered with Felyan script, though it’s just random symbols; it doesn’t mean anything. Oh, and that tree you made out of copper wiring on the shelf below it … that looks just like a hammock tree from the homeworld. I could go on, you know.”
I actually wanted her to, but I felt that it would be best for me to rediscover these things myself. Her few descriptions alone made me realize that I had a lot to re-learn about just how much of her memory I had placed into this artwork.
“It’s all quite beautiful, Jules.” Sar’vana beamed as she returned her gaze towards me, “but it seems that you’ve just been piling it up. Why don’t you sell it? You ought to have quite a demand for it.”
“I can’t,” I said, frowning.
“Can’t bear to part with it?” Sar’vana said, “Or are you afraid of criticism?”
“Me? Afraid?” My eyebrows knotted as I folded my arms in front of me. “Not at all. It’s just that I can’t show them off. It would raise too many alarms.”
Sar’vana made a tiny, brief noise, almost a growl, but one that rose in pitch, like a questioning murmur. It was the way Felyans expressed an inability to comprehend.
“It’s because of the materials I made this stuff with,” I explained. “They’re very hard to come by, and also illegal to own, if taken off of a scrapping site. It’s all raw and unprocessed. It’d be too easy to detect. I’d be found out in a heartbeat at any trade meet. With how much I’ve collected over the years, I’d be sterilized at the very least, and thrown out of the city at worst … without the benefit of protection”
“All over scrap metal knickknacks?” Sar’vana said, unbelieving.
“That’s what it might look like to you,” I said with complete sincerity, “but to us, it’s like stealing gold from the mine you work at. The only reason I get away with it is because my friend Chester works security, and he looks the other way for me.”
“It sounds utterly draconian to me.” Sar’vana made a scowl, which vanished as she appraisingly fingered the necklaces I had on display. “But I guess you have to be strict to keep the profits going.”
“You recovered from that pretty quickly,” I remarked. “A moment ago, you made it sound like it was the most offensive thing you’d ever heard.”
“Oh, I still find it offensive,” Sar’vana rep
lied, making a derisive sniff, “but there are worse places than Zynj. Be thankful that you haven’t been to Zade, or even Hemlock.”
“I’ve heard of them,” I said. “We get some of our slaves from Zade. Most are hardened criminals, so we keep a close eye on them. But it’s said that we treat them better here than on their homeworld.”
“Slavery … another thing I wish there was less of,” Sar’vana said. Her tone was cold, though her words were not directed at me. “You humans puzzle me sometimes.”
“Humans puzzle me too,” I confessed, once again thinking back to the incident from last week, and now feeling even crappier for it. I still couldn’t get over my distaste at what I had to do, both to the trucks, and then to the slaves. Desperate for a less depressing subject, I took note of how Sar’vana’s gaze kept going back to the two necklaces.
“So ... you see something you like, or are you just browsing?” I joked.
Again, she made the uncomprehending sound, but then her eyes brightened as they came to rest upon her hand, which was still touching the necklace. “Oh! That?” She said. “Yes, it is pretty, isn’t it?”
“The gold one was easy to make,” I said. “The materials were fairly common and cheap, just colored glass and brass wiring. But I found the silver one. It took a long time for me to scrounge up enough silver scraps to fix it. I didn’t dare sneak out more than a gram every month or so, and only when I was sure I could get away with it.”
“No doubt,” Sar’vana said. “And you’d still get in trouble even over the gold one, even though it’s just brass and glass?”
“I’m afraid so.”
Sar’vana hummed in a mischievous way, and I saw the same emotion come to life in her violet eyes as they glanced shrewdly my way. “Then… for the public good, I ought to turn you in, Julius Galway.” She pursed her lips and shifted her eyebrows in mock deviousness, appearing to search her thoughts, “unless … I receive just compensation for my silence.”